


witchers are stronger than men

by FillerText



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Blood and Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-07-27 23:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16229594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FillerText/pseuds/FillerText
Summary: Mother had always told Mary to stay away from strange men. Mary assumed that the term ‘strange men’ included men with flashing cat eyes of liquid gold, solid white hair, and dramatic scars carved onto their too-pale skin.But never in her thirteen winters of life had Mary ever seen a witcher, and this rather timely appearance of one sparked her curiosity.--In which circumstances draw Geralt to protect a girl and her mother on their way to the nearest village. At first he is the protector and they, the protected, but an unexpected attack may leave their positions reversed. Will they be able to overcome their prejudices in time to save his life?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I wrote a very, very long time ago, before I began work on any long series. All three chapters are already finished. I will pace the uploads out over a few weeks.

Mother had always told Mary to stay away from strange men. Mary assumed that the term ‘strange men’ included men with flashing cat eyes of liquid gold, solid white hair, and dramatic scars carved onto their too-pale skin.

But never in her thirteen winters of life had Mary ever seen a witcher, and this rather timely appearance of one sparked her curiosity.

Despite being a treacherous, foul, accursed mutant, the witcher was handsome, like a cold and distant hero out of a bard's poems. Still clad in a full set of well-used armor, he crouched silently by the campfire, blinking only very occasionally. It was easy to see where the legends of witcher treachery came from- there was something unnerving about his eyes, shifty and yellow and strange.

She eyed the hilts of the two swords sticking over his shoulders and wondered if he ever took them off. Maybe when he went to sleep? If witchers even needed sleep, that is.

Silence fell over their little camp in an uncomfortable gloom. Mother’s eyes were fixated on the jumping fire as if refusing to look at the witcher that sat directly across from it. Mary shifted restlessly from beside her and, determined to break this spell of awkwardness, made up her mind to say something.

“Mister witcher, why do you have two swords?” came the abrupt question.

Mother’s hand squeezed painfully tight around Mary’s. Mother had warned as they set up camp that the witcher was not to be trusted, or even interacted with at all. They were to take his help silently, and then they were to leave. There was no reason to try and be friendly with him.

Mary disagreed. No man who saved two strangers from a pack of wolves could possibly be _that_ bad. Besides, she and Mother had stuck by his side after that, fearing the wolves’ return, and he had not chased them away. They owed their lives to him. Things would have gone badly if not for his sword.

The witcher stirred beneath his dark cloak. His catlike pupils swiveled to meet Mary’s normal, round ones, and she became transfixed by his steady gaze.

“It’s Geralt.”

Mary blinked the smoke out of her chestnut eyes. “What?”

His voice was as rough as hewn granite, and echoed impressively in the relative silence. “Not ‘mister witcher’. Geralt.”

 _Geralt._ Mary rolled the name around in her head; it felt oddly familiar, like an old name out of a half-forgotten story. Mother stayed silent throughout the exchange, though she tensed at the mention of the witcher’s name.

“Nice to meet you, Mister Geralt,” Mary piped. “I’m Marianne Sorkin, though folks just call me Mary. You didn’t answer my question.”

Geralt was silent for a moment as he directed his gaze towards the dancing campfire. Mary was entranced by the way the glowing embers caught in his eyes, turning them into brightly flickering jewels. He became a creature in the firelight, a demon out of some Daedric legend, cowled in mystery and imbued with a deep sense of purpose. Mary pulled her hand from her mother’s and waited eagerly for a response from this mythic character. An antagonist, sure, but someone out of a storybook nonetheless.

Finally, he spoke. Short and brusque.

“One is made of steel and the other is made of silver. Steel for humans. Silver for monsters.”

Mother sucked in a sharp breath. It took a moment for Mary to understand what Geralt meant.

“I thought witchers only kill monsters,” she said, and Geralt’s mouth twisted into a smile for the first time.

“Humans can be monsters too.”

 

{&}

 

 

Mary awoke to grass tickling her cheek. A gentle breeze swept across the field, causing it to whisper in the language of nature that none but the trees could understand. Someone had thrown a musky cloak over them in the night, and Mary shifted it to the side as she stretched out her limbs and groaned. Sore muscles twinged like snapped bowstrings all throughout her body- yesterday’s run from the burning village had taken its toll.

Mother was still asleep on the ground beside her. The peace of sleep lifted years of age off her tired face, making worry lines disappear and wrinkled skin turn parchment-smooth.

Mary rose slowly, so as not to wake her.

The campfire had reduced itself to a smoldering pile of ashes overnight. She stared at the charred wood, and the memory of a witcher’s glowing yellow eyes suddenly sparked to her memory like a flying ember.

Panic began to rise in her throat like a wave of mud. There was nothing but grassy hillocks all around, and the path a few lengths next to them. The witcher was nowhere in sight.

Mary ran to the path. The fog had disappeared overnight, leaving behind a startlingly clear horizon ahead of her. She checked the rolling landscape, down the road behind her, even the bright bluebell-colored skies above in case Geralt had suddenly sprouted wings and took flight.

It was hopeless. Neither he nor his horse were anywhere in the vicinity.

How could he leave them behind like this? The wolves would come again at dusk, and she and mother would be eaten alive. Heart thumping loudly in her chest, Mary turned away, ready to go tearing into the hills if she had to, the anger pumping blood to her heart in sharp contrast with the tears that began to fill her eyes. He’d promised to help! She was naïve, a simpleton, a country fool, to believe in a witcher.

“Is something wrong?”

Mary spun around, seeking the source of that gravelly voice with her heart in her mouth.

It took her several long moments to spot him. There, in the little tree just ten lengths behind her, was Geralt the Witcher. Spots of his white hair and the fluttering of his cloak were barely visible through the dense foilage.

He leapt down from a branch and landed nimbly on his boots, like a two-legged cat. She ran to him, hiding the quivering of her hands by plunging them deep into the pockets of her apron.

In the daylight, the witcher looked even more intimidating than in the dark. The pale red of his scars stood in stark contrast with his paper-white skin, and the intricate metalwork scrawling across his armor glinted clear in the sun. Mary wiped away her tears with a hasty hand, ashamed that they had sprung over such a petty reason.

_He must think I'm foolish._

“What are- what were you doing in a tree? I thought you’d left us!” she cried accusingly, blustering in order to save face. Geralt blinked those strange yellow eyes at her, and something about the tilt of his shoulders made her think that he was amused.

“I was keeping watch over you and your mother, just as promised.” He held something out in front of him- three freshly killed hares, spinning slowly as they dangled from his fist by the hind legs. “And I have breakfast. Hungry?”

Just like that, Geralt was forgiven.

They roasted the rabbits and had a grand old feast, leaving the third impaled on a spit for Mother. The skin was crisp and flavorful while the meat oozed steaming juices. Mary was sure that rabbit was fit for the King’s table, though this may have been due in part to her having not eaten in several days.

While she polished her rabbit off in a scant few minutes, Geralt ate at a much slower pace, staring pensively into the flames as he chewed. Mary wondered what the grizzled man was thinking. Now that she could more closely examine him, the expression on his face was more lonely than intimidating, like he was sorrowful over something that had happened a long time ago.

She sucked the marrow from a thigh bone with great thoughtfulness. How had Geralt become a witcher anyway? Rumors said that there was black magic involved, blood sacrifices and dead animals and kidnapped children. Had he been forced to become one against his will? That was a new thought, but it made sense to Mary. After all, no one in their right mind would _choose_ to live out such a lonely existence, and Geralt seemed quite sane to her.

“Say, Geralt, how’d you know I was scared?” she decided to ask. Geralt turned towards her and the lost look on his face disappeared, as if she’d suddenly tugged him back to the mortal plain.

“Scared?” he questioned, and Mary gesticulated with her rabbit bone.

“You asked me what was wrong. After I woke up.”

She watched as understanding flitted across Geralt’s scarred features. He replied with seemingly complete seriousness.

“Ah. It’s because your heart started to beat too fast.”

Mary hadn’t realized that witchers, too, knew how to crack jokes, and her cheeks puffed with laughter. “That’s ridiculous,” she chuckled, and tossed the bone into the fire. Geralt did not laugh with her.

 

{&}

 

 

In the late morning they were off again, with Mary and her mother riding the bay mare while Geralt walked in front. Mother apologized profusely for misjudging the witcher; the fact that he’d stayed to guard them instead of running off in the night had apparently earned him her trust.

Geralt did not flatter himself. “Said I’d take you and your daughter to Eisvelle. I intend to keep my word,” he said simply.

It was a simple sentiment, that of keeping promises, but not many people that Mary knew followed this principle. They lied and swindled and cheated whenever it was convenient. The fact that a terrifying baby-stealing heart-eating witcher was more moral in this aspect than your average man felt strange.

Mary waited for Mother to doze off behind her again, head slumped against her shoulder in a deep sleep, before she attacked the witcher with another question.

“Mister Geralt! May I ask you something personal?”

There was a long silence, and Mary thought that perhaps Geralt would ignore her this time. But then-

“…What do you want to know?”

She scratched sheepishly at her face. “How old you are,” she admitted. “You see, you’ve got white hair like an old man, but you move like you’re in your springtime. It’s fascinating.”

He turned his face towards her, enough so that she could see the long scar that curled across his left eye and cheek. “My _what_?”

“Springtime. What my father calls… called the prime of youth. Spring, it’s the season where everything is growing and green. When you’re young and-“

Geralt let out a short bark of laughter, causing Mary to lurch and nearly fall off Roach’s swaying torso. His voice was uncharacteristically light as he spoke.

“By no means am I in my springtime, Mary.”

She stared at the back of Geralt’s head as he walked, at the locks of hair that fell to his shoulders. White, _white_ hair, hair like fallen snow. Even Mary knew that the witching profession was a perilous one- continuing the profession into your elder years, when you weren’t as sprightly and strong as you once were, seemed like a death sentence. And besides-

She leaned over Roach’s warm neck, clenching the sides of his swaying torso with her legs so that she wouldn't fall off. “The fact that you’re roaming the countryside, hunting all these scary creatures, mustn’t sit right with your family. Taking into account your age and such.”

Geralt huffed. He seemed to be greatly amused by this. “I can’t say that it doesn’t.”

Mary waited patiently for an elaboration on this statement, but the white-haired man fell into another one of his deep silences and did not say any more.  _Stupid witcher,_ she scoffed internally.  _Stupid, scaredy-cat witcher._

 

{&}

 

 

_She coughed on the smoke, which clouded the farm in a greyish, foul-smelling haze. From between the slats of wood she could see Father’s silhouette, armed with an axe, facing off against the bandits. He threatened them, and they laughed._

_But Father was a farmer, not a warrior, and the bandits felled him easily. They swung their clubs at him in rhythmic fashion-_ thunk, thunk, thunk- _and Mary might have screamed from her hiding spot in the old barrel, but the roaring of the fire made it impossible to hear-_

 

She opened her eyes.

Smoke drifted lazily from the weakly burning campfire. Mary blinked a couple times to regain her senses ( _that’s right, she and Mother were on the road to Eisvelle_ ) and sat up, trembling fiercely beneath the cloak.

It was night. The dark woods surrounded them like a huddle of domineering overseers, watching them with many ancient pairs of eyes. Mother’s warm body pulsed with gentle breathing from beside her, and Mary was relieved to see that she was sleeping in peace.

The only light came from the dying fire, making it difficult to see where Geralt was. Mary rubbed her eyes and peered into the darkness. She’d told the man to regain his strength by sleeping tonight instead of taking guard. The grunt that came in response could have been of either acceptance or rejection of this notion.

But even if Geralt wasn’t here now, Mary was confident that he would return. She drew her bruised knees to her chest and poked at the glowing charcoal with a stick. Embers sparked and dashed upwards into the night sky, and Mary imagined that they were flying up to join the stars above instead of fading into nothing.

The crunch of footsteps. Her head shot up. Geralt’s boots came into view, and then his fluttering cloak, and then his amber eyes.

“Why are you awake?” he asked, irritated. He drew close to the fire and sat down heavily with a muttered curse.

“Why are _you_ awake?” Mary retorted. She gave the stick a vigorous shake in his direction, smoke trailing from its end like a wand. “I told you to catch some sleep, evil witcher.”

Geralt shrugged, and Mary heard the musical clinking of glass as he rifled through his satchel. With a noise of satisfaction he drew out a singular vial and, with one twist of his hand, popped off the cork. She blinked at the bottle in confusion. A kind of alcohol, perhaps? But in a container so small?

Mary stood up. She rounded the fire and, brushing the dust off her skirts, sat down next to him. He did not attempt to scoot away.

“What’s that?” she queried, gesturing towards the vial. Geralt held it up to the firelight, so that she could better see the ruby liquid that swirled within.

“It’s called Swallow. It speeds up regeneration,” he explained. Now that Mary listened more carefully to his coarse voice, she could hear a sort of richness in it, like the vibration of deep lute strings. “I take some before or after a fight. Tastes like hell, but it does the trick. Wounds heal more quickly.”

“Who are you going to fight?” Mary asked curiously, and Geralt shook his white head. He held up his right arm to the fire. Something was running down his forearm, all the way to where it glistened at his fingertips, wet and red.

“The fight’s already happened.”

Mary blinked, hard. Without her or Mother noticing, Geralt had gone off into the woods and gotten into a duel with some creature.

“You’re hurt,” she said, astonishment bleeding into her voice. The witcher tossed back the Swallow and his normally stoic features contorted into a slight grimace. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth before he spoke, in the begrudging tone of someone admitting to a mistake.

“I was tired. Didn’t think straight, got caught off-guard. I was expecting more wolves, not bears.”

“ _You’re hurt,_ ” Mary repeated. She stood up, panic suddenly seizing her. “What should I do? I have some linen in the-“

“It’s just a scratch,” Geralt cut in bemusedly. He adjusted his cloak to cover the wound. “There’s no cause for concern; Swallow will do all the healing I need. Go back to sleep.”

It was just a gentle suggestion. There was nothing patronizing about the way he spoke to her, and yet Mary felt bitter and antagonized anyway. She didn’t want to be brushed off by the man who had saved her and Mother, she wanted to _help_ him. Even if he _was_ a malicious, cheating, mutant witcher.

With a frustrated sigh, Mary sat back down, resting her chin on her knees and pouting at what remained of the fire. It fizzled gently against the dark forest floor. “I can’t sleep, it’s- it’s really silly, you know, dreaming about dead… dead family and such. But I can’t help it, I really miss Father. We didn’t have the time to give him a proper burial. Perhaps he’ll come back as a ghost?”

“You sound hopeful,” Geralt noted drily, and Mary’s pout became even more pronounced.

“Maybe I am. I wouldn’t mind having him back as a big, white, floating thing… it’s too lonely with just me and Ma.”

She trailed off, gazing out at the lights. _Loneliness,_ the bane of all mortal existence. No one would be able to fill the void Father left behind in the family, not even if Mother remarried. It was a piece taken from a complete puzzle, a simple little family, that she would never get back.

Wallowing in her misery, Mary turned to Geralt, only to discover that he was parsing through that leather satchel again. “Don’t you miss your family, Mister Geralt? I would hate to travel all by myself, like you do. You must be awfully lonely.”

Geralt smiled his little smile, just barely upturning the corners of his lips as he placed a jar of orange mush into its proper place. She couldn’t tell if he was laughing at her or with her.

“Traveling is far simpler when you do it alone. I can go anywhere I want- from Novigrad to Oxfurt to Corvo Bianco and back- without consulting anyone but myself.”

“Novigrad, Oxfurt, and Corvo Bianco!” Mary flopped back in the grass, spreading her hands above her head with a great sigh. She didn’t know what the latter two were, but their names sounded grand enough. “Then maybe there’s something to it, going off on these adventures all on your own. I’ve never traveled more than few leagues from home...”

The witcher might’ve said something after that, but the rapid sleep that took Mary made it impossible to tell if he had.

 


	2. Falling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Description of injuries and blood. This is not a happy chapter.

Mother was asleep again on the horse’s back again. She’d always been of fragile health, and Mary feared that all these nights of camping out in the cold would worsen her condition. In the end, it could be Mother’s frailness that ended her, not some beast out in the wild.

Mary chewed lazily on a sprig of sweetgrass as she trudged alongside Geralt. Poor Roach had been overburdened by carrying two people for so long, so she’d volunteered to walk while Mother rode.

It wasn’t so bad. After all, she had a companion.

“Geeeee-ralt,” she called, and kicked a pinecone along the path. The grizzled witcher squinted at her with those strange yellow eyes, eyes that Mary no longer feared. Perhaps some witchers were bad men.

But not _her_ witcher.

“What,” he grunted flatly. Mary employed a tone as sugary as the sweetgrass.

“I think my mother is sick. Could I borrow some of that potion, the one from earlier-“

He didn’t give her a chance to finish, and cut in sharply enough to make her flinch. “ _No._ Absolutely not.”

Mary was quick to reassess the situation. There were long shadows beneath the witcher’s eyes- he had stayed up all night, _again-_ and there was a weariness on his face that marked how tired he was. Tired and therefore irritable. She’d overstepped her boundaries.

 “Uh… sorry,” she said softly, cowed by his sudden anger. “I didn’t mean to offend…”

Geralt looked behind at her again. The squint was gone, and the flash of anger with it. “I should be the one to apologize. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, sounding slightly more mollified (though this may have just been Mary’s projection, as Geralt’s voice, like usual, betrayed no changes in emotion at all). “But Swallow- nearly all my potions are toxic to some degree, so they would do worse for your mother than good. It would be too dangerous.”

“Toxic,” Mary repeated incredulously. She skipped forward to catch up with the witcher’s long strides. “Thought you said that it heals you?”

“ _And_ poisons. There is a cost and there is a benefit,” Geralt corrected, and then continued walking as if there was nothing incredibly wrong with what he’d just said. It was Mary’s turn to squint at him.

“But… you take them all the time.”

“Yes.”

“And also that they’re _toxic?_ ”

“Yes.”

Mary was stunned. “Then-“

“I’m a witcher,” Geralt interrupted drily. “We all have an immunity to poison, at least to some degree. There’ll be temporary side effects but we won’t die.”

“But,” she protested, “that must hurt terribly to drink.”

He fell silent again. A clear signal that this was the end of the conversation.

Mary’s legs ached and protested with every step. She took a wistful glance back at Mother, who was still dozing atop Roach, and wished that they had brought a second horse with them. How much longer until they reached Eisvelle? For how long could she keep up this breakneck pace? Life on a farm had toughened her legs, sure, but in the end she was just a girl of thirteen winters, not a pack mule.

She looked up Geralt to gauge when he’d be too tired to continue, but the man didn’t look remotely winded. There was no flush across his pale cheeks, no sweat on his brow. _Lucky witcher._

Reluctance to bother him again made Mary hesitate to complain. But in a few hours’ time, her breath was coming too fast and her knees were making strange clicking noises, and Mary knew it was time to speak up.

“Ah… Geralt,” she said in a tiny voice. “Could we- could we take a break, just for a little while? We’ve been going so fast.”

A flinch shook her when the witcher turned, and the twisting in her stomach felt oddly similar to the feeling she got whenever Father expressed disappointment in her. Geralt had every right to be angry with her… Mary was causing them to slow down… Mary was the hindrance, the one who should be left behind, and yet she was the one complaining.

But Geralt did not yell at her. Instead, he scratched at his white hair and let out a deep sigh.

“Ah. You’re just a child. I’m so used to traveling alone that I forgot…” He trailed off, and she fidgeted uncomfortably under Geralt’s scrutinizing gaze.

His next words were completely unexpected.

“Would you be fine with me carrying you? On my back.”

Mary reacted with appropriate shock, as she was generally unaccustomed to being offered piggy-back rides by scary monster hunters. “ _What?”_

Geralt held up his hands in an appeasing gesture, his gruff voice becoming even gruffer. “It was just a suggestion. We need to keep this pace if we want to be at Eisvelle by nightfall, so I thought that would be the most efficient way to do things. Unless you want to wake your Mother and…“

He had a point.

“Fine,” Mary mumbled.

The rumors that witchers were cold-blooded monster men were, as it turned out, complete fabrications- while the air was chilly and damp, the witcher’s back was as warm and dry as stones heated in front of a hearth. She felt awkward, too long and gangly to be carried easily, but seeing how well Geralt held her up eventually put her at ease.

“You’re good at this,” Mary commented. She shifted her arms around Geralt’s neck. “I’m perfectly relaxed, and yet I don’t feel like I’m about to slide off.”

“Witchers are stronger than men,” Geralt reminded in his deep voice as he walked. She shook her head.

“It’s your form that’s good, not how brawny you are. Children must like to play with you.”

Of course, if the tales held any truth, witchers couldn’t have children. They would never be able to start a family in that way. Mary bit her lip and wondered if she’d been insensitive. The witcher didn’t seem to mind, though, giving a noncommittal hum to her conjecture.

She mustered all her courage and went on. “If… if you don’t have any family to go back to, you could always stay with us. Just for a little while. I mean, only if you’d, if you’d like.”

Perhaps he could hear the small waver in his voice, because Geralt’s voice softened almost imperceptibly.

“I’m going to meet someone in Eisvelle. Then I have to leave immediately.”

Mary jumped on the chance. “You’ll come back to visit, then.”

There was a long pause, a pause too long to be healthy for Mary’s nerves. And then the man let out a chuckle. “Why not.”

Mary breathed a sigh of relief, a warm feeling bubbling inside her like a hot spring. She’d made her very own friend. Her  _only_ friend.

 “…You know, my father used to give me rides like this around the farm,” she continued conversationally into his armored shoulder, which went up and down and up and down with Geralt’s steps. “I always pretended he was a griffin, flying around with me on his back. I’d be a griffin-tamer, wandering the world in search of bad people to scare off.”

 _That_ sparked a response. “Griffins can’t be tamed,” Geralt said testily, and Mary giggled at how serious he sounded, as if it were crucial that she understand that yes, the wild, flying monsters that so frequently carried away entire flocks of sheep were not domestic creatures.

“That isn’t the point. Don’t witchers have an imagination?”

He huffed at that. “The world is crazy enough that there is no need to invent such nonsense. Nonsense is everywhere already.”

Well, perhaps that was true for a witcher, but the world of a farming girl like Mary was neither dynamic nor much fun. She settled her cheek comfortably against his armor and said, “Then tell me a better story. A true one.”

“I’d scare you,” came Geralt’s reply, which Mary pretended to take great offense to.

“I’m no child. I turned thirteen years old last moon, Mister Geralt. I demand a story!”

It surprised her when he actually obeyed, launching into a lengthy and detailed tale about when he came across two leshens that were fighting each other, presumably over territory. While leshens were terrifying creatures that would send shivers down Mary’s spine on any given day, the witcher’s dry narration made the entire encounter sound like more of a mission report than anything ( _“I stabbed the leshen, and it died. As for the second leshen, I stabbed that one, too, and it also died,”_ ) and all dramatic tension was lost.

Mary’s lids began to grow heavy halfway through. _No, I must absolutely stay awake,_ she resolved at first, for she had been the one to request the story in the first place. Yet her body’s weariness betrayed her, and soon she fell fast asleep.

 

{&}

 

 

She was dreaming of Geralt in a ridiculous bard’s outfit, orating the Tale of the Two Leshens, when somebody gave her a shake.

“Hey, girl. _Mary._ ”

“Hmm?” she yawned, lifting her head slowly off his shoulder. And then Geralt let go of her, and suddenly she was falling.

Mary tumbled into an ungraceful heap with a squawk of fear. She jumped to her feet and turned, tired and cross and ready to yell at Geralt that his tendency to drop girls into the dirt was the reason why witchers had such bad reputations, when the expression on his face made her freeze.

Gone was the unreadable mask that he’d worn the days before. There was something tense written across his face, like a drawn arrow straining against its bow. His yellow eyes glowed with an inhuman light, and the black of his pupils narrowed into slits.

Suddenly, Mary felt very afraid.

Geralt drew his sword- the one made of silver, the one for monsters _-_ and it flashed in the dim light of the gray sky. “Wake your mother,” he said tersely, and Mary ran to Roach and shook Mother awake.

Mother was just as disoriented as Mary had been but was able to read the situation much quicker. She helped Mary onto the horse and drew Geralt’s cloak around them both, murmuring assurances to her daughter in a low voice- that they could get away in time, that the witcher had it under control. Mary watched as the man knocked back a potion in one gulp and wasn’t so sure. The open-mawed wolf medallion that hung around his neck was vibrating fiercely, clattering against his breastplate like it was about to explode.

“What’s wrong?” she dared to ask. Geralt swung his gaze her way, and she hoped that the expression on her face did not make it apparent how terrified she was.

“Griffin.” His voice was low and deadly serious. “Griffin and something else, something just a little further away. If I can scent them, they can scent us. I will hold them off. You have to leave. Hurry.”

Mary clenched Roach’s reins until her knuckles went white. She’d seen griffins before, seen what they could do to a farmer’s entire flock. “We can’t- we can’t just leave without you.”

But Geralt glared at her and took a menacing step forward, hands curled into fists, golden eyes flashing. Not a hint of hesitation was visible in the sturdy lines of his shoulders or in the deep growl of his voice.

“ _No._ You take your mother and go, and _don’t come back,_ not ever. Do you understand?”

Before Mary could respond in the negative, Geralt slapped the side of Roach’s neck and the horse bolted like a firecracker.

She nearly screamed as she hung onto the bay mare for dear life, Mother’s vicelike arms wrapped around her waist from behind. Roach had gone from a placid, slow-moving mare to a wind demon that flew over the dirt path. As the thundering of hooves filled Mary’s ears, she had enough presence of mind to look back, and saw Geralt standing in the distance with his silver sword brandished.

An unearthly screech split the gray air. A thrill ran down Mary’s spine as a dark shape came hurtling out of the sky like a bolt from a crossbow. It unfurled into a massive plume of feathers in front of Geralt’s tiny figure and let out a lower, more drawn out call. The figure raised its hand and a burst of orange light seemed to erupt from it. She craned her neck, eager to watch-

But then they were in the woods, and the trees blocked her from seeing Geralt fight for his life.

Even as she tugged on the reins, Roach would not stop. Roach would not slow. Mary resorted to beating at the horse with her open palms but this just made Roach gallop even faster, if anything, just as stubborn and with just as high endurance as her master. She and Mother barely clung on as they went deeper into the thicket of pines.

Her thoughts raced with the horse. _Don’t come back, not ever-_ there was no reason to say something like that unless he thought he was in incredible danger. Enough that he might not make it back.

After what seemed like forever, Roach went from a gallop to a trot, snorting tempestuously as she slowed. Mary tried to wheel the horse around and go straight back to Geralt but the horse refused, pawing at the ground and shaking the tresses of her black mane in Mary’s face whenever she strained futilely on the reins.

So Mary slid off the horse and turned, ready to go back on foot, when Mother’s hand latched onto her wrist.

“Let go,” Mary said thickly, the words tumbling out in a rush. “You can’t stop me from going. He hasn’t slept in days, and you heard what he said- he thinks he’s in trouble, thinks he might _die_ -“

 But Mother held on. “I know, Mary,” she sighed with a voice deepened with worry.

Worry festered like an open wound Mary’s heart, and her voice grew hard and jagged. “He saved us from the wolves, you know, even if he _is_ a witcher you can’t just-“

“ _Mary._ Look at me.”

So Mary faced Mother and was surprised to find anguish written deep into the lines of her skin. There was a combination of hurt, guilt, and, above all, _concern_ stark on her pale face. Mother tugged Geralt’s cowl tighter around herself and closed her brown eyes, which had darkened over the years into the rich color of mahogany.

“I know, Mary. I understand,” she repeated in a tight voice, choked by responsibility and regret. “We couldn’t possibly leave the wit… we couldn’t possibly leave Geralt. We’re not going to.”

And Mary’s shoulders relaxed in relief, because for a moment she had feared her beloved mother was a bad person.

A beat passed. Roach tossed her mane again and stamped the ground impatiently. Mother stared down at the ground, bit her lip, and reasoned, “I could ride the rest of the way to Eisvelle and bring back help- we’re very close to it, now, I just have to follow the path-“

“And I’ll go back to where Geralt is, make sure he’s alright,” Mary said firmly. She would run all the way back to the clearing, find Geralt, and they would escape together…

Mother’s dark eyes appraised her daughter in silence, searching for some hidden quality that would qualify her for this mission. Eventually, she gave Mary a hesitant nod. There was still some resignation in her mother’s gaze, as if she couldn’t believe that she was actually having her daughter do this.

“I’ll be back,” Mary promised. She squared her shoulders, turned, and began sprinting down the path.

Thoughts and memories were trickling through her mind in a gentle stream, alternating with the stamping of her feet.

 _Left foot,_ the witcher cutting down the wolves while Mary and her Mother cowered pitifully behind.

 _Right foot,_ the witcher appearing out of a tree, having just hunted breakfast for them all.

 _Left foot,_ the witcher lending his horse to Mother.

 _Right foot,_ the witcher explaining the potions.

_Left foot…_

 

 {&}

 

 

 

It took Mary over an hour to reach the clearing on foot. The air was silent, the griffin’s loud cries having disappeared, and she hovered in the fringe of the woods, unwilling to step out in case it was waiting to ambush her.

All of her reservations disappeared when she spotted a bloody pile of armor in the distance, a white shock of hair spread beside it like a fan. Across from it lay the feathery corpse of a gigantic griffin, immense wings spread open across the field, and the burnt corpse of something charred and unrecognizable.

When the bandits had attacked her father, Mary had watched from inside a barrel as they clubbed his head with a bat. There had been blood, there had been cursing, there had been a shout of pain, but after that it had been over. She’d felt angry and sad and she’d cried a great deal, but there was no sense of injustice. After all, he was her father, and his duty was to protect and serve his family. Mary would have done the same for him and Mother, had their positions been reversed.

But Geralt was different. Geralt was not her father, as much as she liked to imagine that he was, and he owed her nothing. In fact, _she_ owed much to _him,_ for he had saved both her and Mother. A debt that had not yet been repaid.

_Geralt could not die for her._

And this is what Mary repeated over and over, in frantic, gulping breaths, as she sprinted to his unmoving form.

He lay surrounded in empty glass vials, one hand curled by his chest as if in a last-ditch effort to protect his heart, the other outstretched towards a fallen jar of orangish mush. Long grooves cut deep into his armor, tearing through his side and his chest and his arms, drenching his clothes in deep crimson- the work of a griffin’s talons. The metallic scent of blood was so thick in the hazy air that Mary felt dizzy as she knelt by his side.

Worst of all was his face- not because it was even paler than normal, paler than snow, but because his scarred features were completely relaxed. More so than they had ever been while they talked over silly trivialities, or even while he was asleep. There was peace in the slackness of his jaw, his gently closed eyes. The stillness that only fell over the expressions of the dead.

“Mister Geralt,” Mary managed. She fumbled with a glove, managed to get it off, and searched frantically for a pulse in his wrist. It was just barely there, a light tapping against her fingers that was slower than the heartbeat of a hibernating bear.

She began to panic. “Geralt! _Witcher!_ ”

Geralt’s golden eyes fluttered open. Adrenaline flooded Mary’s veins in a heated rush. He was alive, and still partially conscious. He had a chance.

The witcher’s voice, which was like the quietest crumpling of paper, sounded weak and confused.

“Mary.”

She couldn’t breathe right. “Yes,” she choked out as she unbuckled his armor. It was nearly glued to his torso with dried blood, and Geralt twitched when she pried the breastplate off his chest with one strong pull. “I’m here, I’m here, I’m going to save you.”

Exposed underneath were the fresh wounds from the fight, gashes in his clothes still oozing a steady stream of dark blood. Mary snatched up the orange jar and, taking off the lid, took a deep whiff of the pulp inside. The cloying scent of flowers filled her nose- a tincture of some sort- and that was enough to convince her of its medicinal properties.

Using her bonnet, Mary patted away the blood from the deepest gash, before pressing a big handful of the tincture against it. She could feel Geralt’s body shivering with sickness beneath her, and the full extent of the damage he’d suffered hit the thirteen-year-old girl like a wave.

All this lost blood, the long gashes decorating his side, his flickering consciousness. This was a dying man.

No, not a man. Geralt was a _witcher,_ and witchers were far stronger than men. She said it like a prayer, a million desperate times under her breath.

_Witchers are stronger than men._

“You can’t go yet,” she told him in a shaking voice.

But Geralt was already gone, lost in some feverish dreamland where Mary was someone else. His unfocused eyes stared through her, up at the grey skies above. The distant look on his face terrified her, peaceful and wandering.

“Ciri. I’m s’rry,” came the whisper. “Shouldn’… shouldn’a let… you go.”

“Don’t speak,” Mary choked. She was going to kill whoever this Ciri was for making Geralt apologize for… for anything, really. Tears fell hot from her face and onto Geralt’s neck and the guilt fucking seared her soul like a hot brand because this was all her fault. She was useless, absolutely pathetic, and now someone worth a thousand times more than her was-

 “You are not dying, Mother is getting help. Geralt, stay awake- stay with me _please._ ”

The witcher didn’t reply. Mary grabbed his satchel, dumped all his potions on the ground, searching desperately for the one he’d pointed out to her the day before. The one that healed- Swallow, it was called. _It tastes like hell, but it does the trick,_ Geralt had said just yesterday with a light smile.

It was nestled in the grass next to a bright yellow potion. She unstoppered the little vial with shaking hands and, holding Geralt’s mouth open, poured its contents down his throat. A shudder wracked the witcher’s body as he coughed, dark blood dribbling weakly from his lips, and she cradled his head in her lap while whispering meaningless platitudes, most likely to unhearing ears.

Fear swelled in Mary’s heart like a cresting wave. She didn’t want the lonely, scary-looking witcher to die here, with no one to bear witness but a pathetic farm girl. She wanted him to smile again. Maybe even laugh.

If the Swallow didn’t work, if this was where Geralt met his end- then Mary would not be able to live with herself. How pathetic she was. How absolutely, disgustingly pathetic.

It felt like she stayed that way forever, crouched in the dust with shaking hands. Mary stared at her bonnet with distant eyes, which she was still using to try and staunch the bleeding. She couldn’t remember what color it had been, before it had been soaked all the way through with Geralt’s blood.

An eternity later, in the distance, someone called her name.

“ _Are you Mary_ _?”_

She looked up.

Now she could almost hear steady rumble of hooves as a dark shape approached from the woods down the path- a rickety wooden cart, drawn by a galloping black horse. Atop the horse was the most extraordinary lady Mary had ever seen.

She was the sort of beautiful that bards sang about in the taverns, with a face of sculpted marble and hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing. As the cart drew closer, Mary could see the violently purple hue of the lady’s eyes, the delicate leatherwork of her black outfit. A stranger in every sense of the word.

The lady dismounted with a genteel grace that was unbefitting of the situation. Mary stared, uncomprehending- _who is this woman, why is she here-_ while the lady knelt beside them and felt for a pulse in the witcher’s cold neck.

“Oh, dear Geralt. Whatever would you do without me?” the lady muttered in a voice that was more disappointed than concerned.

It was then that Mary realized that this woman must be the one Geralt was supposed to meet in Eisvelle.

“W- who are you?” she stuttered, suddenly gripped with a paralyzing fear that this lady would hate her, because Mary was the reason for the current state of the lady’s companion. But when the lady turned her violet eyes on Mary, a small smile graced her dark lips. Mary felt faint.

“Your mother sent me to retrieve you.” She patted Geralt’s unmoving shoulder. “And this young man here, as well. She was quite… ah, but you aren’t listening, are you?”

The lady waved her hand, a spark of purple as bright as her eyes blitzing across her fingers, and Mary’s vision began to swim. “Rest. You’ve earned it,” the lady said gently, and Mary felt herself falling, but never felt herself land.


End file.
